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Questions regarding God’s justice will be with us always—at least until the kingdom comes. A current example: Since Love Wins brought it up, we are pondering the fate of those who have never heard of Jesus. The New Testament clearly teaches that we can appropriate the forgiveness wrought for us on the cross only by trusting in Christ. But of course, those who haven’t heard of Christ cannot do that. So how will God judge them?

In my book, God Wins, I argue that when it comes to such questions—questions the Bible does not answer—our only recourse is to trust in the God who has shown himself to be perfectly merciful and perfectly just in Jesus Christ. We are called to trust that this God will do what is just, right, and good.

This answer has seemed too easy to some. One reviewer of my book referred to this type of answer as “punting”—by which he inferred that it was an easy way out of theological dilemma.

In one sense, the criticism is just, because in the book I did not signal what an extraordinary thing such faith is. I may have given the impression that this sort of faith is an easy out, a comforting escape, a way to avoid tension and ambiguity. It is anything but that.

To me, the easy way out of such dilemmas is to foreclose the tension. For some Christians today, that means positing a loving God who would never in a millennium condemn such people to hell in such an arbitrary fashion. Others say that people who have never heard the gospel will be judged by their good works, or by the lights of their religion. Some speculate that upon their death, such people will be given knowledge of Jesus and will be able to make a decision for Christ right then and there.

The problem with each “solution” is that each is a sheer fabrication. The Bible—what we take to be God’s revelation of himself and his will—says little or nothing about the fate of those who have never heard the name of Jesus. But we continue to trust in such solutions because, well, they relieve the tension. To me, they are different ways of “punting,” taking the easy way out.

The hard way, the narrow way, the way that demands more than human beings can do on their own, is to trust God to do what is right and just and good.

We can see this more clearly when we bring the issue of God’s justice closer to home. You have a brother or sister, son or daughter, mother or father, husband or wife, or best friend who simply refuses to believe in the gospel. But their reasons are complex. Maybe they were abused by a pastor in their youth. Maybe they were raised in a church that was oppressively legalistic. Maybe they have faced tragedy after tragedy. The point is, you understand why they refuse to trust in Christ—everything in their life suggests that the Christian faith is absurd. And yet in many ways, this loved one lives more like a Christian than do a lot of people in your church. They make lifestyle changes to preserve the environment. They volunteer at the homeless shelter. They never judge other people. They are the nicest people to be around. And so forth.

There’s the tension: What is God going to do with such people, people who literally have failed to trust in Christ but whose circ*mstances suggest they may now be psychologically incapable of even hearing the gospel?

Some revert to the letter of the gospel law: Since these people have heard the literal words of the gospel and refused to name the Name, they are destined for hell. Tension eliminated.

Others say God will understand their circ*mstances. Surely their lifestyle must count for something. And they imagine that God will welcome these “unbelievers” into his presence when they die. Issue resolved. No more tension.

But of course, we have no idea what God will do. He’s not revealed what he would do in such circ*mstances. So we’re just making things up, one way or the other, to relieve the tension.

The really hard thing in such circ*mstances is to appreciate the deep ambiguities evident in such situations: that these are people we deeply love, that they are sinners like us, that they have refused to believe in Christ, and that their circ*mstances seem an unfair hurdle for them to jump over to receive Christ into their lives. The really hard thing, then, is to refuse to judge them as bound for hell or heaven. The really hard thing is to live with the tension and leave the entire matter in the hands of the God who showed himself perfectly just and perfectly merciful in Jesus.

If anyone out there finds that an easy thing to do, put your name ahead of Mother Theresa for sainthood nominations. For as we’ve learned from her journal, even Mother Theresa found God’s ways inexplicable at times, so inexplicable that they caused her anguish. Anyone who can look at the famine in Somalia, or the tsunami in Japan, or terrorist bombings in Iraq—at the senseless loss of precious human life and can say —glibly, casually, smoothly !—that God is perfectly just and perfectly merciful has no idea what they are talking about.

God is perfectly just and perfectly merciful, and this we must proclaim right in the midst of the most awful circ*mstances and in the face of the most mysterious questions. But we proclaim it not glibly, not easily, but in fear and trembling, with nothing to hold on to but faith. We proclaim it not because we know exactly how God will work out his justice and mercy—for this he has steadfastly refused to reveal. What he has revealed to us is that he is perfectly just and perfectly merciful—as demonstrated in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God with us! When he visited our planet in an unmistakable way, this is what God looked like—a just and merciful and omnipotent Being whose justice and mercy know no bounds.

To proclaim trust in God’s justice in mercy in the face of life’s tragedies and dilemmas is not punting, it’s going for it on fourth down and long, with the entire game on the line. It only increases the tension. It is to commit ourselves to what rational people (like us!) think an absurdity, an impossibility. It’s a game plan that has no chance by human reckoning. Nobody in their right mind can believe such a thing given the facts on the ground, or given these weighty and imponderable philosophical dilemmas. It’s naïve. It’s foolhardy.

Yes, it is. It is Kierkegaard’s faith in the absurd. It is Karl Barth’s “impossible possibility.” It is Paul’s “foolishness of the cross” (1 Cor. 1:18-25).

I am very much a man of my time, and if I’ve given the impression in my book that this trust comes easily, forgive me. I am every day tempted to justify the ways of God to man. I want answers that will topple the walls of unbelief. I would rather live without these unbearable tensions. I strive to avoid the narrow and straight path of faith. In short, I punt day after day. But not because I trust in God, but because I find it much easier to trust myself.

But there is another thing I find hard to believe, even though I have staked my life on it: That God in Christ forgives sinners who know they believe more in their wisdom than in God’s mercy, and grasp that they cannot do a thing about that but to trust in that mercy.

Mark Galli is senior managing editor of Christianity Today. He is the author of God Wins: Heaven, Hell, and Why the Good News Is Better than Love Wins (Tyndale).

Copyright © 2011 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

Previous SoulWork columns include:

John Stott and the Weary Evangelical | What the movement looks like at its best. (August 4, 2011)

The Most Risky Profession| Why you need to pray desperately for your pastor. (July 14, 2011)

What Faith Is: Accepting Conditions| Eternity is inevitable, one way or another. We may want to get used to it. (June 9, 2011)

What do the stories of a grieving mother, a couple traveling to India, and a fictional character have in common? All three stories involve people using reproductive technology to have a baby.In aLadies Home Journal article,Jackie Hance describes the incomprehensible loss of all three of her young daughters one summer afternoon. On July 26, 2009, Hance’s sister-in-law, Diane Schuler, was driving the girls and her own kids home from a camping trip when she drove the wrong way on New York’s Taconic State Parkway. In a head-on collision, the three Hance girls, along with Schuler, Schuler’s two-year-old daughter, and three passengers in the other car died. An autopsy indicated that Schuler had been drinking and smoking marijuana, although Schuler’s husband insists that there must be another explanation.

Hance describes how she has survived such a loss, supported by friends who cooked meals for an entire year and continued to come get her for their morning runs. She also accepted a fertility doctor’s offer of free IVF services (Hance previously had a tubal ligation). The treatment gave her something to focus on, though she wasn’t sure she could go through with having an embryo transferred to her womb. But then she had a dream.

I was standing in heaven and I could see Emma, Alyson, and Katie through these big gates. God would not let me inside the gates. He said that I had been given a gift from that doctor and I had to use his gift before I could be with my babies. So, almost in a daze, I told the doctor I wanted to try to get pregnant, never expecting it to work.

I got pregnant the very first time.

Several weeks ago, the PBS NewsHour showed clips from a film titled Made in India, about Western couples hiring poor Indian woman as gestational surrogates. The film focuses on an American couple in which the wife had a hysterectomy due to pre-cancerous cells in her uterus. Because she retained her ovaries, she and her husband could have a genetically related child using a gestational surrogate. Unable to afford IVF and surrogacy in an American clinic, they turned to India, where a mother of three agreed to bear their child in return for several thousand dollars.A home video clip shows the couple opening an e-mail with news that the Indian surrogate is pregnant. They whoop and embrace; their dream of being parents is coming true. The father talks about how unfair it is for outsiders to ask them, “Why don’t you just adopt?“

Finally, I just finished reading novelist Jennifer Weiner’s new book, Then Came You, which chronicles the lives of four women involved in a surrogacy arrangement. (Disclosure: I liked this book, but it has sexual themes that some blog readers might object to.) India, a petite 43-year-old beauty thanks to multiple plastic surgeries, punishing exercise, and a strict diet, is the self-described “trophy wife” of a wealthy older man with three grown children. India and her husband, Marcus, hire a gestational surrogate to carry a baby conceived with Marcus’s sperm and a donor egg. Jules is the Princeton-educated egg donor who uses the money she gets for her eggs to pay for her addicted father’s rehab. Annie is a happily married mother who sees surrogacy as a chance for her family to stop living hand-to-mouth. Bettina, Marcus’s grown daughter, is convinced that India is not what she appears to be, and sets out to find the truth about her stepmother’s past.

In aninterview with New York Times writer Lisa Belkin, Weiner said that the true story of Alex Kuczynski planted the seed for her novel. I vividly remember reading the New York Times Magazine article in which Kuczynski described the process of having a baby with her older husband using a surrogate. Like many readers, I was troubled by the article and photos, in which Kuczynski came across as extremely entitled. Weiner told Belkin, “I read [Kuczynski’s account] and I wondered: What led her to this? What’s this woman’s real story?”

Seeking the “real story” is central to reproductive ethics. I was sympathetic to the characters (real and imagined) in these three stories. While I have concerns over how IVF tempts parents to believe they can completely control childbearing, I am glad that Hance will once again wake to the sound of a child’s voice calling for her. While I think that outsourcing pregnancy to poor women in India raises urgent moral questions, I bristled along with the husband baffled by people who, in a paraphrase of his words, put the weight of the world’s orphan crisis on the shoulders of infertile couples. And while I was turned off by Kuczynski’s surrogacy story, I appreciated Weiner’s attempt to show that every human is multidimensional, full of both dark and light. Everyone has a story—one that cannot be fully told in a sensationalized magazine article.

Hearing these stories makes it harder for me to judge whether technologies such as IVF and surrogacy are right or wrong. Does my empathy for individual’s emotionally charged, complex decisions mean that I believe that anything goes, any decision is morally acceptable, as long as it makes someone feel better?

In a word, no. Stories matter. But stories are not all that matter. In my post tomorrow, I’ll introduce the concept of “narrative ethics,” which puts people’s stories at the center of ethical discourse. I’ll name some of the benefits and limits of this approach for Christians.

Directly from CNN’s Belief Blog:

They preach, the heal the sick, and they swagger from the pulpit. But these aren’t your average preachers, they are children dubbed pint-sized preachers. The viral internet phenomenon is transitioning to TV in a new documentary.

On Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET, the National Geographic Channel will air “Pint-Sized Preachers,” a documentary looking inside the controversial world of child evangelists and the families who watch over them.

The hourlong documentary tells the stories of three young boys who have gained notoriety for their explosive sermons and, in one case, a self-proclaimed power to heal the sick with a single touch.

Will the documentary have the same cringe-inducing effect on viewers as, say, TLC’s “Toddlers and Tiaras”?

After watching this preview, I don’t know whether I’m fascinated or totally turned off:

How many sermons have you heard (or preached) in the last year on marriage, children, parenting? And how many have been on singleness? If your experience is anything like mine, the disparity is probably pretty great. With the exception of a few strong singles ministries at the largest churches, single Christians often find their struggles–and blessings–neglected at the expense of the married couples and families.

So many churches are structured around the family unit, and that’s a good thing. Families are important, and for the majority of people in most churches this is the context in which spiritual formation happens. But this is not true for everyone. And single people also need to know how they fit into the church, and how God speaks into their particular situation. This begins in the pulpit.

I was actually surprised to learn that John Stott, the evangelical statesman who recently died, never married in his 90 years. In an article for Christianity Today, Al Hsu shares Stott’s wisdom on singleness in the church, and there is much wisdom for church leaders looking to better address the topic.

In the piece (which is adapted from the full interview in Hsu’s book, Singles at the Crossroads: Fresh Perspectives on Christian Singleness) Stott touches on many aspects of singles that will instruct pastors on how they can best address the subject, including how to balance the “goodness” of both marriage and singleness, reasons people remain single, and viewing singleness as a gift from God.

Stott also talks about an issue that plagues both single and married people, and, as he notes, pastors in particular: loneliness. He says:

God created us as social beings. Love is the greatest thing in the world. For God is love, and when he made us in his own image, he gave us the capacity to love and to be loved. So we need each other. Yet marriage and family are not the only antidotes to loneliness.

Some pastors work on their own, isolated from their peers, and in consequence are lonely. But the New Testament plainly envisages that each local church will have a plural oversight. See, for example, Acts 14:23 and Titus 1:5. So in All Souls Church in the heart of London we have always had a team ministry, and we have found it an enormous enrichment. I have also been greatly blessed by Frances Whitehead, my faithful secretary for more than 40 years, and by the “apostolic succession” of my study assistants.

This is wonderful advice for all ministry leaders, single or not. As much of a blessing as family can be, God’s vision of community extends beyond the family. How is your church encouraging a culture that pushes back against loneliness outside of the family context?

John Stott is being remembered as an evangelical statesman, a pastor/scholar, and an inveterate birdwatcher. He was also a lifelong bachelor. While researching my book on a theology of singleness, I had the opportunity to meet Stott and interview him about his views and experience as a single. He later revised and expanded his candid remarks into a more thorough treatment of the subject, from which the following is excerpted.

On the balance of marriage and singleness:

We must never exalt singleness (as some early church fathers did, notably Tertullian) as if it were a higher and holier vocation than marriage. We must reject the ascetic tradition which disparages sex as legalized lust, and marriage as legalized fornication. No, no. Sex is the good gift of a good Creator, and marriage is his own institution.

If marriage is good, singleness is also good. It's an example of the balance of Scripture that, although Genesis 2:18 indicates that it is good to marry, 1 Corinthians 7:1 (in answer to a question posed by the Corinthians) says that "it is good for a man not to marry." So both the married and the single states are "good"; neither is in itself better or worse than the other.

Reasons people remain single:

I doubt if we could find a clearer answer to this than in the recorded teaching of Jesus himself in Matthew 19:11-12. He was talking about "eunuchs," meaning people who remain single and celibate. He listed three reasons why people do not marry.

First, for some it is "because they were born that way." This could include those with a physical defect or with a hom*osexual orientation. Such are congenitally unlikely to marry.

Second, there are those who "were made that way by men." This would include victims of the horrible ancient practice of forcible castration. But it would also include all those today who remain single under any compulsion or external circ*mstance. One thinks of a daughter who feels under obligation to forego marriage in order to care for her elderly parents.

Third, "others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven." These people, who are under no pressure from within or without, voluntarily put marriage aside, either temporarily or permanently, in order to undertake some work for the kingdom which demands single-minded devotion.

Singleness as a gift from God:

It's noteworthy that Jesus himself, before listing those three categories of single people, said that not everybody could accept what he was about to say, "but only those to whom it has been given." If singleness is a gift, however, so is marriage. Indeed, I have myself found help in 1 Corinthians 7:7. For here the apostle writes: "each man [or woman] has his [or her] own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that." "Gift" translates charisma, which is a gift of God's grace (charis). So whether we are single or married, we need to receive our situation from God as his own special grace-gift to us.

On Stott's own experience as a single:

In spite of rumors to the contrary, I have never taken a solemn vow or heroic decision to remain single! On the contrary, during my 20s and 30s, like most people, I was expecting to marry one day. In fact, during this period I twice began to develop a relationship with a lady who I thought might be God's choice of life-partner for me. But when the time came to make a decision, I can best explain it by saying that I lacked an assurance from God that he meant me to go forward. So I drew back. And when that had happened twice, I naturally began to believe that God meant me to remain single.

Looking back, with the benefit of hindsight, I think I know why. I could never have traveled or written as extensively as I have done if I had had the responsibilities of a wife and family.

On loneliness:

God created us as social beings. Love is the greatest thing in the world. For God is love, and when he made us in his own image, he gave us the capacity to love and to be loved. So we need each other. Yet marriage and family are not the only antidotes to loneliness.

Some pastors work on their own, isolated from their peers, and in consequence are lonely. But the New Testament plainly envisages that each local church will have a plural oversight. See, for example, Acts 14:23 and Titus 1:5. So in All Souls Church in the heart of London we have always had a team ministry, and we have found it an enormous enrichment. I have also been greatly blessed by Frances Whitehead, my faithful secretary for more than 40 years, and by the "apostolic succession" of my study assistants.

In addition, single people are wise to develop as many friendships as possible, with people of all ages and both sexes. For example, although I have no children of my own, I have hundreds of adopted nephews and nieces all over the world, who call me "Uncle John." I cherish these affectionate relationships; they greatly lessen, even if they do not altogether deaden, occasional pangs of loneliness.

Final words of advice for single people:

First, don't be in too great a hurry to get married. We human beings do not reach maturity until we are about 25. To marry before this runs the risk of finding yourself at twenty-five married to somebody who was a very different person at the age of twenty. So be patient. Pray daily that God will guide you to your life partner or show you if he wants you to remain single. Second, lead a normal social life. Develop many friendships. Third, if God calls you to singleness, don't fight it. Remember the key text: "Each person has his or her own gift of God's grace" (1 Cor. 7:7).

Adapted from Singles at the Crossroads: A Fresh Perspective on Christian Singleness, by Albert Y. Hsu. Copyright(c) 1997 by Albert Y. Hsu. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press; PO Box 1400; Downers Grove, IL 60515. www.ivpress.com.

Related Elsewhere:

See our full coverage area on John Stott.

Christianity Today's earlier coverage of single living includes:

Every Older Single's Battle | With Singled Out, Christine Colón imagines what celibacy might look like for today's evangelicals (Aug. 5, 2009)

Choosing Celibacy | How to stop thinking of singleness as a problem. (September 12, 2008)

Practicing Chastity | A lifelong spiritual discipline for singles and marrieds. Lauren F. Winner reviews Dawn Eden's The Thrill of the Chaste. (March 15, 2007)

Sex in the Body of Christ | Chastity is a spiritual discipline for the whole church. (May 13, 2005)

30 and Single? It's Your Own Fault | There are more unmarried people in our congregations than ever, and some say that's just sinful. (June 21, 2006)

Solitary Refinement | Evangelical assumptions about singleness still need rethinking (June 11, 2001)

Two Cheers for Celibacy | People who expect a sudden reversal of the century long clerical requirement show an inadequate understanding of why the Vatican is committed to this policy. A Christianity Today editorial (June 10, 2002)

A Singular Mission Field | There are more single people in America than ever—and they need the church as much as ever. (June 4, 2001)

Sex and the Single Christian | What about the unmarried in their post-college years? (July 7, 2000)
Women Churchgoers 'Face Growing Difficulty in Finding Partner' | British magazine says church is out of single men, especially older ones. (June 7, 2000)

The healthy infant boy's top teeth came in before his bottom teeth. For this, elders of the Kara tribe in Ethiopia's primitive Omo River region determined that the child must die.

The child was mingi—"cursed" according to superstition. With every breath, the elders believed, the boy was beckoning an evil spirit into their village. It was the sacrifice of one child for the good of the entire tribe, a rite that elders had witnessed for untold generations.

Less clear was what to do about the boy's dead twin. After some debate and an examination of goat intestines, the elders decided the dead twin must have been mingi too. They dug up the corpse, bound it to the living boy, paddled a canoe into the center of the swiftly moving Omo River, and threw them both into the cold, brown waters.

That was five years ago. Several years ago, regional officials had begun taking action—threatening prison for those complicit in mingi killings. But at best, officials are equipped to step in only after a child has been murdered. So, in the villages of southern Ethiopia, a region the size of Texas with few roads or infrastructure, a few concerned tribespeople started an orphanage for cursed children. Yet the orphanage is mired in controversy, and meanwhile, few have challenged the underlying fear of mingi.

But one small band of Christians in one tribe, along with other supportive Christians, has pledged to protect these cursed children until mingi is no more. They are determined to show tribal elders that there is something "stronger than mingi"—the power of Jesus Christ. Earlier this year, I traveled to the hard-to-reach Ethiopian river valley to hear their story.

Modern-Day Child Sacrifice

Bona Shapo, a tribal elder, took me to where mingi children are being sacrificed. He steered his dugout canoe through the crocodile-infested waters of the Omo River, guiding the craft beneath a crumbling precipice near the stick-and-thatch village of Korcho. Across the river, Colobus monkeys whooped and howled, stirring Marabou storks from their perches on a stand of acacia.

"This is where they do it," says Bona, who had stood on these muddy banks the day the boys were thrown into the river.

There has been little modern research on mingi. Elders single out for death children who are born out of wedlock, have damaged genitals, or whose top baby teeth emerge before the bottom ones. Kara elders believe keeping this traditional practice is crucial to tribal survival. Allowing a mingi child to live among their people, they fear, will cause the rains to cease and the sun to grow hotter.

"If they have mingi, there will be no water, no food, no cattle," Bona says. "But when they throw the baby away, everything is good again. So yes, it is sad, but we are thinking about the village, the family, all the people."

Tribal parents tolerate the killing. After Erma Ayeli gave birth, elders took her newborn. She was not permitted to nurse him, hold him, or see him. "I think he must have been a beautiful boy," she says. "I wanted to keep him."

Her chin sinks into the colorful beads draped around her neck. Erma still grieves over her son's death—but she does not question it. "There was no other option," she says.

Sex outside of marriage is acceptable among the Kara. But if a woman becomes pregnant before participating in a marriage ceremony, as Erma did, her child is considered kumbaso—a mingi curse that occurs when parents fail to perform the appropriate rites before conceiving.

As Erma speaks, her hands fall to her swollen stomach; she is pregnant again.

"It was an accident," she cries. "I don't want to lose this baby, too."

This time, at least, she has reason to hope that her child might be spared. Far from her village is an orphanage for mingi children. Erma has pleaded with village leaders to let her child go there. Either way, she will not be allowed to see the baby. "This time, I think, I might have a girl," Erma says.

Failed Deterrent

The criminal case of another young mother, Mashi Limo, shows how difficult it is to stop mingi practices. The beads, animal skins, and jewelry that Mashi once wore have been replaced by a tattered shirt and loose-fitting skirt. She is indistinguishable from the other inmates at the prison in Jinka, the regional capital.

Yet everyone in the ragtag penitentiary knows who she is. "The mingi mother," says one guard. "Yes, we all know what happened to her. It is very sad."

Back in her Kara village, it is well known that Mashi did not kill her cursed infant; she was far too weak after the birth to do so. Other women took the baby away.

But when the police arrived, Mashi took the blame. Within days, she had been sentenced to three years in prison. She had no attorney; there was no trial.

Mashi is conversant only in her native language. She has never been to school. When she is finally released, there will be one place to go—back to the village. And so, under the watchful eyes of several other Kara prisoners, Mashi stands by her story.

"What they say is false," she says of those in her tribe who have proclaimed her innocence. "I did it all myself."

Asked if she deserves to be in prison, the teenager sinks her face into her hands. "I hate it here," she says. "I wanted to keep my baby. That was not allowed. This is our culture."

The government succeeded in putting someone behind bars for a mingi murder, but there has been little deterrent effect. Solomon Ayko, a lanky young Kara man who has witnessed several mingi killings, told me, referring to tribal elders, "Before they did it in the open. Now it just happens in secret."

It is extremely uncommon for police officers to make the arduous trip from Jinka to any of the far-flung Kara villages. Officers who make the trip discover that villagers strongly support mingi killings.

Korcho village elder Ari Lale described to me how some mingi killings, in addition to drowning, are carried out. Some 15 years ago, a cursed baby had been born. The elders asked Ari to take part in the child's execution. "The baby was crying," Ari says, "so we put sand in its mouth, and he was still trying to cry but couldn't anymore." Soon the child was dead.

Ari counts his participation in the boy's death as one of his proudest memories. "All the families would thank me for throwing away that baby," he says. He and others have found different ways to carry out the killings to avoid detection. He says, "After the baby is born, we keep it alone in the house, and we do not give it water or milk."

Without nourishment, the infants die quickly. There is little that can be done to prove that a baby wasn't simply stillborn. Ari appears to be pleased with this solution. Yet he balances his pride with lament. "They are human," he says. For all the praise he got for carrying out the first killing, Ari says, he would have preferred to let the child live—if only there had been another way.

Controversial Solution

For a younger Kara man, Shoma Dore, mingi killings were simply part of his generational heritage. "I didn't realize there was anything wrong with it."

Not, that is, until Shoma left the tribe to attend school. When he returned from Jinka two years later, he realized how wrong it was. Shoma found others among the Kara's educated youth who had come to the same conclusion.

"There are many important and good parts of our culture," says Aryo Dora, one of about 30 young Kara who joined Shoma to ask elders to stop the mingi killings a few years ago. "There is also a sickness in our culture, and we have to change ourselves."

Their plan, developed with the help of a team of Westerners, was simple: If mingi children could be sent far away from the village, they would pose no risk to the tribe. That is how the orphanage began. Today, more than 30 mingi children live together in a small, single-story home in a quiet Jinka neighborhood.

Still, the process of placing a mingi newborn with the orphanage is gut-wrenching for the mother.

On a bright May morning in Korcho village, dozens of women are on their knees, grinding sorghum into flour, but Zelle Tarbe is working inside. It has been six days since she gave birth to her baby boy. The shock of having him taken away is still evident in her face. Nonetheless, she says, she feels fortunate, "because my son is alive."

Zelle was able to spend a few short moments with her baby before orphanage officials spirited him away. "He was so sweet and beautiful," she says. "But I did not give him a name, because he was mingi and could not stay with me."

No one, least of all Zelle, would argue that the rescue mission isn't preferable to death for mingi children. But the orphanage has nonetheless been a controversial solution.

'The rains stopped for a short time. The people rose up and said, "You must get rid of her. Throw her into the bush." But I said, "Do not throw your child into the bush."'— Kaiso Dobiar

A group of American Christians had supported the orphanage for two years, but this spring they decided to withdraw their backing, believing the orphanage's director was using orphanage funds for personal benefit.

Then, orphanage leaders accused the Americans—who had helped arrange the adoption of four mingi babies—of stealing the children from their families. The adoptions were, in fact, legal under Ethiopian law, which treats mingi children as abandoned. But orphanage leaders have argued that the birthparents surrendered their babies under cultural duress and have the right to reclaim the children.

Regardless, adoptions and orphanages don't address the fears that instigate mingi killings. Even with support from Westerners, the rescue and shelter system is able to save only a fraction of at-risk children.

Tribal leaders in Korcho say about 20 mingi children have been born into their small village since the orphanage opened. Orphanage workers say they arrived in time to save only about half of those children.

Last year, mission leaders learned that a woman had given birth to a mingi boy, whom tribal elders had promptly attempted to kill by ripping out his umbilical cord. The wounds quickly went septic. Evacuation by air was the only solution. Chartering the aircraft cost $3,500.

"That was the sum of all the money we had," said Levi Benkert, an American and one of the mission's former leaders. "We couldn't be certain that, even if we did it, he was going to live."

They did it anyway—and saved the boy. An online fundraising effort quickly recouped the costs, but rescue mission officials knew they couldn't sustain those sorts of expenses.

"We did our best," Benkert says. "We saved as many children as we could. And we continue to pray for them every day."

Change from Within

In light of orphanage scandal and government inaction, several tribal Christian families have turned to foster care.

Foster care keeps mingi children closer to their birth families, which can show elders that mingi poses no threat to a village's prosperity. German missionary Andreas Kosubek, who has ministered to the Kara for six years, believes Kara parents genuinely love their children. "These people are really good people," says Kosubek. "They are not doing this because they are evil, wild, dumb monsters. They fear for the lives of others in the tribe."

From Kosubek's point of view, the only thing that will overcome the fear is helping the Kara believe in something "stronger than mingi." Ultimately, the 29-year-old evangelist would like to see the Kara come to Christ—though few villagers have taken up his offer to accept Christ, and many openly mock his pitch.

Kosubek is undeterred. He figures the next best thing to leading the Kara to Jesus is serving them like Jesus. Since 2005, he has organized medical mission trips into the tribe's villages. "Our main goal was to help these people really get to know Jesus, but we cannot do that unless we approach them with humility and a dedication to service," he says.

Kosubek recognizes the need to end mingi killings but doesn't feel called to condemn tribal elders. "Before we judge, we have to ask ourselves what we have done to help these children." If the mingi killings are to end, he believes, the change will have to come from within the tribes.

That's what happened with the Banna, another Omo River tribe.

'These babies are like influenza. If it is not stopped, it can kill many people. That is what they believe. When things go badly, the people believe this more than ever.'— Andualem Turga

In a mud hut in the village of Alduba, Kaiso Dobiar dips a ladle into a tar-black pot of coffee and stirs the simmering brew. She is proud to be Banna, and she follows many of her tribe's customs and beliefs. But Kaiso is also a Christian, a member of the Kale Heywet evangelical denomination, which has 7,700 churches nationally. Wary of idolatry, she and her husband refused to perform the rites mandated by tribal leaders before they conceived.

"My children are mingi, in that way of thinking," says Kaiso, who is fostering two additional mingi children in her home.

A petite toddler crawls onto Kaiso's lap, reaching over to help stir the pot. "This is Tarika," Kaiso says. "She is 2, and she is mingi."

Tarika was born without the appropriate Banna ceremonies, but her birthmother refused to give up her daughter for six months. "Then the rains stopped for a short time," Kaiso says. "The people rose up and said, 'You must get rid of her. Throw her into the bush.' But I said, 'Do not throw your child into the bush. Give her to me.' "

Sharing this hut with Kaiso's family is Tegist, another mingi child. Kaiso says her foster daughters cannot play with other Banna children and must remain in her family's compound.

"They will have to stay here until they are older," Kaiso says. "After that? God, he knows."

Missionaries first came to the Banna decades ago. Today, Christians compose just 1 to 2 percent of the tribe's population, but their collective devotion has been enough to eliminate almost all mingi killings within the tribe. With little money or other means of support, the Banna Christians have accepted responsibility for scores of mingi children.

Many, like Kaiso, are already caring for one or more mingi boys and girls. One family has taken in 17 foster children.

They do so at great risk to their own families. "What are you doing protecting those children?" an angry neighbor screams from beyond a stick fence as Kaiso steps out of her home. "Tell us why!"

Long Journey Ahead

The Banna have not faced drought or a significant bout of disease for years. That, local Christians say, has prevented their neighbors from lashing out. But if the tribe's fortunes were to change, its leaders would be swift to identify a culprit, says Banna tribesman Andualem Turga.

"To these people, these babies are like influenza," Andualem says. "If it is not stopped, it can kill many people. That is what they believe. When things go badly, the people believe this more than ever."

Uri Betu tries not to think about such things. She is unwavering in her obligation to the two mingi children who live in her home—and any others who need her care.

"We do not worry," Uri says as she watches her pair of 2-year-old foster daughters, Tariqua and Waiso, play in the yard. "This is what God has called us to do."

Over time, Uri prays, the Banna will see that the presence of mingi children in their midst is unrelated to weather patterns. Perhaps, she says, that recognition will help bring them to Christ. And, God willing, other tribes that practice mingi child sacrifice will follow.

Still, Uri knows, "There is a long way to go to change the beliefs we have had for so long."

Matthew D. LaPlante is an assistant professor of journalism at Utah State University. Rick Egan is a staff photographer at The Salt Lake Tribune.

Copyright © 2011 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

Christianity Today has additional coverage of Ethiopia and Africa on our website.

Other CT articles on human sacrifice and ritual killing include:

Human Sacrifice Redux | How the church battles deadly prophets in its midst. (December 1, 2004)

Debate continues on Incorporating Animal Sacrifices in Worship | Some Christians warn that African rituals to honor ancestors could subvert the Gospel message. (October 1, 2000)

Let Africans Honor Ancestors with Blood Libations in Mass, Says Bishop | 'Is there a way to integrate this custom with their Christian belief as a step toward meaningful inculturation?' (April 1, 2000)

Ending Human Sacrifice | How Patrick may have convinced the Celts to turn from ritual killings to the one who died for all. (October 1, 1998)

Pro-democracy protests in the Middle East and North Africa have demonstrated the power of nonviolence in birthing political change. In 2003 and 2004, a milestone in the history of nonviolent action took place near the Palestinian village of Budrus. Israel was building its Separation Barrier between Israel and the Palestinian Territories. But near Budrus, the barrier veered from the border and cut through the village’s olive groves.

Because Budrus’s economy depends on those trees, villagers confronted the construction workers and border police. A documentary recently released on DVD, Budrus (JustVision), details the work of Fatah leader Ayed Morrar, who coordinated with a local Hamas leader and later with Israeli activists to protest the bulldozing of the olive trees and eventually to get Israel to move the fence. The film also pays tribute to Morrar’s daughter, who transformed the dynamics of the protest by insisting that women be allowed to participate.

Unlike the nonviolent work of Sami Awad, featured in the 2010 documentary Little Town of Bethlehem, Morrar and his companions never eschew violence on principle, but treat nonviolence as a mere tactic, a practical way to provoke public sympathy.

Copyright © 2011 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

I was in Baghdad in March 2003, where I lived as a Christian and as a peacemaker during the "shock-and-awe" bombing. I spent time with families, volunteered in hospitals, and learned to sing "Amazing Grace"… in Arabic.

There is one image of the time in Baghdad that will never leave me. As the bombs fell from the sky and smoke filled the air, one of the doctors in the hospital held a little girl whose body was riddled with missile fragments. He threw his hands in the air and said, "This violence is for a world that has lost its imagination." Then he looked square into my eyes, with tears pouring from his, and said, "Has your country lost its imagination?"

That doctor's words have stayed with me.

In a country that is going bankrupt as it continues to spend $250,000 a minute on war, it is clear that it is time to re-imagine things. That doctor's words have inspired a little something.

On the eve of the 10th anniversary of September 11, Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, and I are teaming up. And we have rallied a bunch of other artists and storytellers to create a 90-minute variety show and multimedia presentation to raise questions about violence and militarism and share stories of reconciliation and grace.

We're calling it "Jesus, Bombs, and Ice Cream."

A victim of 911 will share about why she insists that more violence will not cure the epidemic of hatred in the world.

A veteran from Iraq will speak about the collision he felt as a Christian trying to follow the nonviolent-enemy-love of Jesus on the cross…while carrying a gun.

A welder will tie an AK-47 in a knot while a muralist paints something beautiful on stage.

We're going to do a Skype call with Afghan youth working for peace, and hear their dreams for a world free of war and bombs and other ugly things.

I don't want to give the whole thing away, but I will say we've got the world's best juggler Josh Horton doing an original anti-violence routine. And we've got some of the finest musicians rocking out some old freedom songs.

Ben and I are sort of like the ringmasters of the circus. He'll do this spectacular demonstration with Oreos where each one representing $10 billion of federal spending so we can see how the money stacks up with all these budget talks. I'll share about Jesus, and that grace that dulls even the sharpest sword.

We hope you can make it.

Oh, and word on the street is – ice cream will be served.

But even if you can't make it to Philly on September 10 for our little party, find some way to do something that doesn't compute with the patterns of violence. It's time to re-imagine the world.

Find a way to interrupt injustice and to build the kind of world we are proud to pass on to our kids – a world with fewer bombs and more ice cream.

I hope to go back to Iraq in a year or two, find that doctor again, and tell him: "We have not lost our imagination."

Here's a video invitation from Ben:

More than a year after announcing that she is gay, Jennifer Knapp tells NPR that she was “very hesitant” about coming out in the first place.

“Knowing that I was going to have to publicly deal with my sexuality — it really made me consider how much I wanted to participate in music,” Knapp says of her decision to suddenly stop making Christian music in 2002. But after a seven-year hiatus, she returned, not as a CCM artist, but as a secular folk-rocker who still identified herself as a Christian. She told NPR she was “very hesitant to get back up into the public level, knowing that there would be discussion about my sexuality on the whole.”

Other Christian musicians who have come out also shared their stories with NPR. Read the full story here, or listen here.

Pitzer College, a liberal arts school in California, will take secular education to the extreme this fall as it begins offering a major in secularism. Philip Eaton, president of Seattle Pacific University, seeks to counter the secular model of education with a model of life-giving learning in his new book, Engaging the Culture, Changing the World: The Christian University in a Post-Christian World (IVP Academic). Hunter Baker, associate dean of arts and sciences at Union University, spoke with Eaton about ways Christians can successfully engage the culture without necessarily blending in.

You say that the world needs the Christian university. How would you respond to secularists—or even some anti-intellectual Christians—who would disagree?

The demand at our schools has never been greater. This signals to me that there is something profoundly missing from the secular culture's commitment to education. We have something vitally important for the lives of students and for the health of our society. We have something more to offer them. I am convinced of this, despite the naysayers on both ends of the spectrum.

What about the drive toward seeing college as simply where we go to train for a job?

The university must be seen as a path toward productive lives. The Christian university must master, at the highest levels of excellence, the ability to equip our graduates with skills that matter in the world, abilities that allow them to contribute to society. At the same time, we want to equip them for both productive and meaningful lives. We want to provide them with a vision of human flourishing for their lives and for the world.

Several times you write about not giving students a "stone" instead of "bread." Is something like secularism, what Walker Percy calls "scientific humanism," the stone?

This metaphor is about our children, our students—the next generation. This is where Jesus puts the emphasis. He tells us that we have an enormous responsibility to teach children well, to equip them, to let them in on the secrets of the tribe, the teachings of our faith. All societies take education seriously. But in our time, we must take seriously both dimensions of this metaphor. There is education that is lifeless at the core: education that cares for skills to succeed in the world, but cares little about passing on a vision for human flourishing. Instead, we need an education that is life-giving, to our students and to the world—bread instead of a stone.

Secular thinking has hollowed out the soul of the educational enterprise. The masters of suspicion—Nietzsche, Freud, Foucault—have triumphed. Under their influence, we have an education based on suspicion about any story that seeks to participate in the true, the good, and the beautiful. The result is a life of suspicion, even cynicism.

You use the image of colliding maps of the world to illustrate the challenge of postmodernism. What is the key to finding a true map of reality?

Recovering the Resurrection is the key. As the Misfit says in Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," the Resurrection changed everything: If it is true, there is nothing to do but throw down everything and follow Jesus. If it is not, then why not live a life of meanness, selfishness, and destruction?

As we look at our surrounding culture, it is clear we have chosen a world without Easter. What would the world be like if Easter people once again asserted influence in the culture? That is the mission of the Christian university.

You place great value on community formation with regard to the study of Scripture and the pursuit of holiness. Is this a model for spiritual life at the university?

While I chose in the book not to focus on details of particular student programs, or how they relate spiritual life to academic life, I hope integration could be a new paradigm. At Seattle Pacific, we have tried to tap into deep roots of Christian history and teaching, by intentionally centering our reading, study, and worship on the Scriptures. History tells us this can have a profound shaping influence in the life of the community and the surrounding world.

Should the Christian university model holiness as a community?

Yes, I hope so. There is no more effective way to impact the world for good than by earnestly aspiring to be communities of trust, grace, hope, and holiness. People are watching. Universities are not the church. But we must continually draw from the deep and rich resources of our special tradition to create universities that truly matter to the world.

You talk about the divide in higher education in terms of two radio stations. One excludes God from consideration of public matters as a matter of course. The other nurtures a tribal type of Christian identity. You call for a work of translation.

Translation has to go both ways. As Scottish missionary Lesslie Newbigin argued so powerfully, we must learn the language of culture in order to translate the gospel into the culture. Our separatist tendencies encourage us to drop out of the culture altogether, skip the translation work, and rest on our clichés. Our accommodating tendencies make us shy about speaking the gospel at all. But we must find what I call the radical middle: to learn the culture through and through, and then to engage it boldly with the transforming gospel.

Copyright © 2011 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

Engaging the Culture, Changing the World is available from ChristianBook.com and other book retailers.

Additional Christianity Today articles on Christian colleges include:

Christian Colleges Hope House Bill Will Repeal New Rules | CCCU says government's solution to for-profit problems threatens schools' autonomy. (June 30, 2011)

Generic Christian U. | Ties that bind church schools are loosening. (January 14, 2011)

New Rules Worry Christian Colleges | Government's solution to for-profit problems may threaten schools' autonomy. (November 1, 2010)

Christian Colleges' Green Revolution | From the cafeteria to the classroom, students are learning to be environmentally conscious. (May 25, 2007)